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Comment Re:SCOTUS: Anonymity necessary for free speech (Score 4, Interesting) 241

You don't understand; this is the world of a post-Trump election. The left is now beating the drum in support of all kinds of issues they used to oppose: censorship; stripping internet anonymity; gun ownership; violent revolution; succession. Their surveillance state that they loved and supported under Obama, they're now demanding he tear down in his final months lest Trump become its master. The office of the unaccountable god-emperor President, beloved by the American left just 13 days ago, is now their greatest fear.

Simply put, the tantrum response to the election will continue, regardless of previous beliefs, regardless of well-understood reasons for why some things are the way they are, and especially regardless of any Supreme Court ruling. It's all gone upside-down and you should expect to see the left continue to attack free speech. What began years ago as "political correctness" and accelerated more recently into "micro-aggression" and "safe-spaces," has now turned on the afterburner and is proceeding a mach speed into naked censorship.

Free speech was a vital tool for the left 50 years ago when they were the minority. When they became the majority it was no longer necessary. Now that they're a retreating and threatened majority, it's a danger to them.

Comment Re:Trump haters worse than Trump? (Score 1) 497

If Steve Bannon is an anti-Semite, then you'd expect his media outlet, Breitbart News, to have some anti-Semitic articles on it, wouldn't you? Do you think he could run the publication for years without it happening?

How about you provide links to some of those articles. Go! Educate us. Wade through the thousands of pro-Jewish, pro-Israel articles on Breitbart and find us the anti-Semitic ones.

You can't. Because they're not there. Because Steve Bannon isn't an anti-Semite. He's a friend of Israel and the Jewish people, and he devotes a considerable effort of the Breitbart News outlet to supporting them. You've been fed the Big Lie about Bannon from the same news media that lied to you non-stop throughout the election, and you're not experienced enough to know better. I would wager you've visited brietbart.com exactly zero times in your life, and you have no idea what it's about. So when CNN and NPR tell you he hates Jews, you don't have the mental faculty to resist the claim.

It's okay though, you can educate yourself. Go do the search I described above, and when you've realized that Steve Bannon doesn't have a shred of antisemitism in his body, then you can have some deep contemplation beginning with this question: "If the news sources I consume lied to me so blatantly about something so trivial to refute, and expected me to be such a docile, helpless, gullible, and daft consumer of their news, what else might they be lying to me about?"

Comment Re: gloves? (Score 1) 425

Why is the guy above me voted to 'Troll'; he brings up an important point about the gun control "debate?"

Every time a liberal wants a new gun control law, they say that gun owners need to "compromise." You see that word? Compromise. You'd think it would mean that each side gives a little and gets a little, but when it's used in reference to gun control it only ever means, "you lose some rights today, we'll leave the rest for now, but we'll be back to take them later." There's NEVER any actual compromise offered. No offer to repeal any of the myriad of useless and ineffective gun control laws that don't impact criminals and only burden people who want to legally own a gun.

How about taking suppressors off of the NFA? You shouldn't have to pay a $200 tax and wait 8 months for a safety device.
Repealing the Hughes Amendment? Remind me how many legally registered machine guns have been used in crimes in the last 80 years. (Spoiler: 2; both by cops)
Making the USPS accept ammo shipments?
Anyone care to tell me the useful law enforcement purpose of the handgun import points system? Spoiler again: it was contrived by Democrats in the 60's to keep guns out of the hands of poor people.
How about allowing out of state gun sales through any FFL dealer? Spoiler: Democrat law from the 60's to keep blacks from getting guns.
How many crimes do you think have been prevented by 922(r) parts compliance rules? I'll just go ahead and tell you it's zero.
What about the ban on import of "non-sporting" guns? I can buy them legally if they're made in the USA, but not if they're imported. That makes sense how?

And yet, none of that is ever offered as a real compromise. This is why gun owners take an absolute stance against all new restrictions. History has shown us that the moment they're passed, the next push for more restrictions begins immediately.

Comment Re:Most Transparent Administration In History! (Score 1) 116

Nothing new. The Obama administration has the worst record of blanket FOIA denial of any since FOIA became a thing.

There was a lawyer who sent the FBI an FOIA wanting to know what offenses would make a person a "domestic abuser" and disqualify them from buying a gun. The FBI said the list was secret and refused to answer. There's your most transparent administration ever!

The BATFE has stopped responding to FOIAs completely. If you want anything from them, you have to sue, pay for counsel, and wait for the lethargic court system to sort it out for a few years. They've even claimed they're not subject to FOIA requests AT ALL!

http://www.guns.com/2015/08/12...

Another case recently: a lawyer was looking for all correspondence between the BATFE and a gun control group, NFATCA. The BATFE slow walked it until there was a lawsuit, then said they could only deliver records from after 2013, and it would take 6 months. The "compromise" was that the BATFE will release the emails in 5 dumps between November and March. So 10 months after the initial request, he'll have all the documents, and then he can take them to court over the huge number of redactions that recent history has shown us will be in there.

As much as some people want to try and say, "the last guy wasn't transparent either!!!," well, things have objectively gotten worse for FOIA requests under Obama.

Comment Re:Asinine. (Score 1) 438

Maybe we could get a top law enforcement guy for the whole US. We could call him, The President. And we could empower him to enforce the laws of the country through various agencies. Maybe we could name two of those agencies the Department of Justice, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. And then we could pass a law making it illegal for convicted felons who lost the right to have a firearm to try and buy one! We could call it, The Gun Control Act of 1968!

Then, that President guy could instruct his subordinates in those two departments, to enforce that 48 year-old law, and FINALLY we'd have some good controls in place to stop convicted felons from getting guns!

Do you see where this is going yet?

In 2010, out of 48,321 felons and fugitives who attempted to illegally purchase firearms, the Department of Justice prosecuted only 44 of them. https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2F06wJ50p6rMs

That's 48,321 open and shut cases of felons and fugitives swearing in writing on their ATF Form 4473 that they can legally posses a gun, when they couldn't. President Obama's Justice Department gladly allows 99.91% of the prohibited felons who attempt to buy a gun from a federally licensed dealer simply walk free. Right there are 48,321 of your felons illegally trying to get guns, and being allowed to get away with it.

We don't lack strong controls. We lack any will from President Obama to enforce the law, and it's quite on purpose. If the current gun laws were rigidly enforced, gun crime would drop, and the president wouldn't be able to whine incessantly about how we need more gun laws.

Comment Re:Asinine. (Score 4, Informative) 438

You may not, but the problem is that too many of the politicians you vote for do. HRC is on record many times this campaign saying she wants to see the "Australian model" implemented in the US. That means forced confiscation of all personally owned firearms under the guise of "buybacks." The buybacks are mandatory, and you go to prison is you don't comply.

Here's a list of politicians talking about confiscating guns, just from a short period in 2013:

Hawaii legislature proposes gun confiscation
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/...

New York Assemblyman asks colleague not to mention that original proposed SAFE Act included confiscation
http://www.breitbart.com/Breit...

Missouri Democrats introduce legislation to confiscate guns
http://nation.foxnews.com/gun-...

VA has veterans who cannot manage their own financial affairs declared prohibited persons unable to own firearms
http://www.humanevents.com/201...

NJ State Senator "We needed a bill that was going to confiscate confiscate confiscate."
http://www.politickernj.com/ba...

Oregon Legislator calls fears of gun confiscation a "paranoid delusion" and then states he is in favor of gun confiscation
http://www.examiner.com/articl...

Governor Cuomo says, "confiscation could be an option."
http://www.nationalreview.com/...

Feinstein suggests "compulsory buyback."
http://washingtonexaminer.com/...

CA assembly proposes confiscating 166,000 legally registered guns.
http://www.mercurynews.com/bre...

And the classic from 1995:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3F...

Do you notice any common political party among the people calling for confiscation?

Comment Re:Broken Windows Policing (Score 4, Interesting) 191

Maybe the president could start enforcing the gun laws he has the power to enforce, instead of pushing for new restrictions on law abiding citizens?

In 2010, out of 48,321 felons and fugitives who attempted to illegally purchase firearms, the Department of Justice prosecuted only 44 of them. https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2F06wJ50p6rMs

That's 48,321 open and shut cases of felons and fugitives swearing in writing on their ATF Form 4473 that they can legally posses a gun, when they couldn't. The Justice Department gladly allows 99.91% of the prohibited felons who attempt to buy a gun from a federally licensed dealer simply walk free. Right there are 48,321 minor crimes that could have been enforced that weren't.

Comment No effect on greenhouse gases. (Score 1) 222

From the article:

"It will emit about 40,000 fewer tons of greenhouse gases per year than fossil fuels would to generate the same amount of energy. That's the equivalent of taking 150,000 cars off the road."

According to economists, about 80,000 - 150,000 people come of age each month in America. (This is the number used to see how many minimum jobs need to be created in a month to have an effect on unemployment.) How many of those people do you think have a car? Statistically, in America, 63,760 - 119,550 of them will have cars. (797 cars/1000 people in the US. Source: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...)

From a greenhouse gas standpoint, the whole effort of building this windfarm is wiped out by 1.25 - 2.35 months of population growth.

Comment Re:Stupid bet... (Score 2) 303

Agreed.

My preferred bet would have been, "Are there more or fewer people recorded living in the zip codes of the Florida Keys during the 2020 census than there were during the 2010 census?"

The criteria for settling the bet needs to be something much more objective than highly variable and easily manipulable temperature data. Global Warming could be complete bunk, and these guys could have still lost the bet due to nothing more than yearly variation in temperature. They choose their bet poorly.

Comment Obama. What a joke. (Score 4, Interesting) 95

The president with the worst history of blanket denial of FOIA requests, running the most opaque government in our lifetime, signs a law "improving" the FOIA system. What a joke! If he and his executive branch didn't respect it before, they wont respect it now.

I was reading on a gun blog recently about a lawyer who sent the FBI an FOIA wanting to know what offenses would make a person a "domestic abuser" and disqualify them from buying a gun. The FBI said the list was secret and refused to answer. There's your most transparent administration ever!

The BATFE has stopped responding to FOIAs completely. If you want anything from them, you have to sue, pay for counsel, and wait for the lethargic court system to sort it out for a few years. They've even claimed they're not subject to FOIA requests AT ALL!

http://www.guns.com/2015/08/12...

Submission + - Clinton's Private Email Was Blocked By Spam Filters, So State IT Turned Them Off (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Documents recently obtained by the conservative advocacy group Judicial Watch show that in December 2010, then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her staff were having difficulty communicating with State Department officials by e-mail because spam filters were blocking their messages. To fix the problem, State Department IT turned the filters off — potentially exposing State's employees to phishing attacks and other malicious e-mails. The mail problems prompted Clinton Chief of Staff Huma Abedin to suggest to Clinton (PDF), "We should talk about putting you on State e-mail or releasing your e-mail address to the department so you are not going to spam." Clinton replied, "Let's get [a] separate address or device but I don't want any risk of the personal [e-mail] being accessible." The mail filter system — Trend Micro's ScanMail for Exchange 8 — was apparently causing some messages from Clinton's private server (Clintonemail.com) to not be delivered (PDF). Some were "bounced;" others were accepted by the server but were quarantined and never delivered to the recipient. According to the e-mail thread published yesterday by Judicial Watch, State's IT team turned off both spam and antivirus filters on two "bridgehead" mail relay servers while waiting for a fix from Trend Micro. There was some doubt about whether Trend Micro would address the issue before State performed an upgrade to the latest version of the mail filtering software. A State Department contractor support tech confirmed that two filters needed to be shut off in order to temporarily fix the problem — a measure that State's IT team took with some trepidation, because the filters had "blocked malicious content in the recent past." It's not clear from the thread that the issue was ever satisfactorily resolved, either with SMEX 8 or SMEX 10.

Comment Re:Doesn't really matter. (Score 1) 327

Additionally, hydrocarbons wont be replaced for use in more than a small minority of air travel, ocean travel or rail travel in my lifetime. Cars, yeah, you probably wont be able to buy a new ICE car 40 years from now. The rest of our modes of transport will still be hydrocarbon then.

Also, we've seen how well utility scale solar is working out at Ivanpah. Utility scale solar is a dead-end. Utility scale wind power is limited in deployable area. The environmentalists wont allow tidal or nuclear. So, we're left with fossil fuels.

Personally, I'm long XOM, CVX, RDS, COP, and a whole host of smaller upstream, midstream and downstream companies.

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